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This is fairly similar to the way airlines can charge lower prices for a SFO-NYC-BTV route than they do for SFO-NYC. They know certain routes (SFO-NYC) are used

This is fairly similar to the way airlines can charge lower prices for a SFO-NYC-BTV route than they do for SFO-NYC. They know certain routes (SFO-NYC) are used by business travelers. Some people try to game the airlines in the same way that the article describes, getting a price based on one route (SFO-BTV via NYC) and then actually taking a different one (SFO-NYC). I expect Uber will eventually prevent this the same way the airlines do: penalizing you for taking a trip that doesn't match what you told them you were doing by refusing to allow you to continue once you deviate.

usaphp 9y ago
I did not know that airlines penalize you for that. What happens when you have a sfo-nyc-btv flight and decide to get out in NYC?
- preinheimer 9y ago
  The airlines get grumpy. They may not grant you miles, cancel your return trip entirely, etc. Skiplagged I think helps you figure this sort of thing out: https://skiplagged.com/ https://skiplagged.com/
- meaydinli 9y ago
  There was a whole controversy a few years ago around this. See https://skiplagged.com/about https://skiplagged.com/about . This website automated that approach so that you got a ticket with a few stops for cheaper but you just left at the stop you wanted originally.
- speby 9y ago
  People do this a lot. This is a well-known and old issue known as "Hidden City Ticketing" and goes by other names, as well. It is against the typical Contract of Carriage agreement passengers have their airlines, though it's hard to actually enforce: https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/17984/is-leaving-airport-at-a-stop-before-the-final-destination-illegal https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/17984/is-leaving-... Note that while this tactic can be money-saving and useful in practice, it does have certain downsides, like if you need to check luggage, or if you expect to collect your airline miles and segments (typically requires completing the full itinerary, though not always).
  - waqf 9y ago
    The big one that nobody's mentioned is that the airline will cancel any remaining flight segments on that ticket, without recourse unless you are very good at begging favors from customer service. So don't book a round trip SFO-NYC-BTV-NYC-SFO on one ticket and skip the NYC-BTV segment, because you won't be able to rejoin either for BTV-NYC or NYC-SFO.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- cddotdotslash 9y ago
  There's a whole website (https://skiplagged.com/ https://skiplagged.com/) dedicated to it. The airlines do NOT like it. I believe they sued the creator of the website at one point. In short, you can't check your baggage, they'll probably notice you didn't take the second leg, and if you do it too many times, you might find yourself with a ban.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- philipodonnell 9y ago
  They might cancel the rest of your roundtrip ticket and refuse give you a refund, or they might ignore it for a while and then ban you, or they might do random things like refusing to honor ff miles. There are no rules to protect you and no one to complain to except the airline's customer service. Care to roll the dice? :-)
kevindong 9y ago
Another part of airline pricing that makes zero rational sense is when a one way flight costs $x, but a round trip flight (which includes the original one way flight) costs <$x. For instance, (at the time of writing) this Lufthansa one-way flight from Prague to Budapest at 1pm on May 20 costs $425 [0]. But this round trip flight from Prague to Budapest (which includes the 1pm May 20 flight) costs $343 [1]. [0]: https://www.google.com/flights/#flt=/m/05ywg.BUD.2018-05-20.PRGMUC0LH1691~MUCBUD0LH1678;c:USD;e:1;sd:1;t:f;tt:o;sp:.USD.42450 https://www.google.com/flights/#flt=/m/05ywg.BUD.2018-05-20.... [1]: https://www.google.com/flights/#flt=/m/05ywg.BUD.2018-05-20.PRGMUC0LH1691~MUCBUD0LH1678*BUD./m/05ywg.2018-05-24.BUDMUC0LH1681~MUCPRG1LH1688;c:USD;e:1;sd:1;t:f;sp:.USD.33794*.USD.34231 https://www.google.com/flights/#flt=/m/05ywg.BUD.2018-05-20....
- mgliwka 9y ago
  OT: How did you find that flight?
  - kevindong 9y ago
    I just use Google Flights by first searching for one-ways: I enter in the origin, destination, and departure date. (as an aside: generally only the large legacy carriers do this type of price discrimination.) Find one flight that's not "this is so cheap I don't care" (basically at least a few hundred dollars). Then, change the search mode to round trip and find the same departing flight. The lowest round trip price will be shown.
- smohnot 9y ago
  This again is market segmentation. When I was flying a lot as a management consultant, even when flying somewhere and back, the times mattered more to me than the airline so I'd often do 1-ways on different airlines and didn't care that it cost ~$1k 1-way for a domestic airline. Also often, I was hopping from place to place using 1-ways.
  - kevindong 9y ago
    I understand the economic rationale behind this, but I would think that there's automated tools to exploit this segmentation. It'd just be a simple function call to determine if there is any round trip flight (with a certain one-way segment) that's cheaper than the one-way segment alone. --- I stumbled upon this strangeness while planning out a vacation. I'm basically hopping through Europe so I was buying several one way flights. I accidentally clicked the roundtrip button once and noticed that the prices, in general, seemed lower than the one way. So I checked and lo and behold: they were lower. I ultimately just went with Ryanair because their prices were literally a third of what the next lowest carrier wanted (~$35 vs. ~$120).
fishywang 9y ago
No the rationale behind it is very different from the Uber case. The reason behind hidden city fares is, the price of SFO-NYC-BTV is for the SFO-BTV market, to compete with other airlines' SFO-ATL-BTV, SFO-ORD-BTV, SFO-Whatever-BTV or SFO-BTV direct flight. It has nothing to do with SFO-NYC market, just for this particular airline it happens to route through NYC. It discounted more than SFO-NYC market because competitions on that market. That's why competition is good for customers (history has shown us that when an airline has monopoly on a market, you can only expect the fares on that market to go up). That's also why it's against the contract of carriage you have with the airline and the airlines are working very hard to avoid customers doing that (if you associate your frequent flyer number with hidden city bookings, they might cancel your account. they might also put you on a blacklist if you are caught doing this frequently). The airline practice similar to the Uber one is charging more for frequent flyers. United was caught doing that a few years ago (maybe they are still doing that).
- philipodonnell 9y ago
  > The reason behind hidden city fares is, the price of SFO-NYC-BTV is for the SFO-BTV market, to compete with other airlines' SFO-ATL-BTV, SFO-ORD-BTV, SFO-Whatever-BTV or SFO-BTV direct flight. It has nothing to do with SFO-NYC market, just for this particular airline it happens to route through NYC. It discounted more than SFO-NYC market because competitions on that market. In price disparity situations as an outsider, its impossible to determine whether the lower price is because based on competitive pressure (as you claim) or whether the higher price is based on customer's willingness to pay (as I claim), because both imply that the other is the "normal" price absent those features. Its likely a little bit of both. What is the same is the economics: costs in both industries are primarily based on miles that they took you. Prices are based on what they think they can get away with charging you. The more they know about you (or infer based on the data they have and what you are trying to do) the more chances they have to charge you higher prices because they think you can afford it.
  - fishywang 9y ago
    It's always based on customers' willingness to pay, that's how capitalism works. It's just that the competition will make customers less willing to pay more.
joelrunyon 9y ago
No - that would be like charging people different amounts based on their individual travel habits. Route preferences are one thing. Charging different people different $ is another thing.

usaphp 9y ago

I did not know that airlines penalize you for that. What happens when you have a sfo-nyc-btv flight and decide to get out in NYC?

preinheimer 9y ago
The airlines get grumpy. They may not grant you miles, cancel your return trip entirely, etc. Skiplagged I think helps you figure this sort of thing out: https://skiplagged.com/ https://skiplagged.com/
meaydinli 9y ago
There was a whole controversy a few years ago around this. See https://skiplagged.com/about https://skiplagged.com/about . This website automated that approach so that you got a ticket with a few stops for cheaper but you just left at the stop you wanted originally.
speby 9y ago
People do this a lot. This is a well-known and old issue known as "Hidden City Ticketing" and goes by other names, as well. It is against the typical Contract of Carriage agreement passengers have their airlines, though it's hard to actually enforce: https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/17984/is-leaving-airport-at-a-stop-before-the-final-destination-illegal https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/17984/is-leaving-... Note that while this tactic can be money-saving and useful in practice, it does have certain downsides, like if you need to check luggage, or if you expect to collect your airline miles and segments (typically requires completing the full itinerary, though not always).
- waqf 9y ago
  The big one that nobody's mentioned is that the airline will cancel any remaining flight segments on that ticket, without recourse unless you are very good at begging favors from customer service. So don't book a round trip SFO-NYC-BTV-NYC-SFO on one ticket and skip the NYC-BTV segment, because you won't be able to rejoin either for BTV-NYC or NYC-SFO.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
cddotdotslash 9y ago
There's a whole website (https://skiplagged.com/ https://skiplagged.com/) dedicated to it. The airlines do NOT like it. I believe they sued the creator of the website at one point. In short, you can't check your baggage, they'll probably notice you didn't take the second leg, and if you do it too many times, you might find yourself with a ban.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
philipodonnell 9y ago
They might cancel the rest of your roundtrip ticket and refuse give you a refund, or they might ignore it for a while and then ban you, or they might do random things like refusing to honor ff miles. There are no rules to protect you and no one to complain to except the airline's customer service. Care to roll the dice? :-)

kevindong 9y ago

Another part of airline pricing that makes zero rational sense is when a one way flight costs $x, but a round trip flight (which includes the original one way flight) costs <$x. For instance, (at the time of writing) this Lufthansa one-way flight from Prague to Budapest at 1pm on May 20 costs $425 [0]. But this round trip flight from Prague to Budapest (which includes the 1pm May 20 flight) costs $343 [1]. [0]: https://www.google.com/flights/#flt=/m/05ywg.BUD.2018-05-20.PRGMUC0LH1691~MUCBUD0LH1678;c:USD;e:1;sd:1;t:f;tt:o;sp:.USD.42450 https://www.google.com/flights/#flt=/m/05ywg.BUD.2018-05-20.... [1]: https://www.google.com/flights/#flt=/m/05ywg.BUD.2018-05-20.PRGMUC0LH1691~MUCBUD0LH1678*BUD./m/05ywg.2018-05-24.BUDMUC0LH1681~MUCPRG1LH1688;c:USD;e:1;sd:1;t:f;sp:.USD.33794*.USD.34231 https://www.google.com/flights/#flt=/m/05ywg.BUD.2018-05-20....

mgliwka 9y ago
OT: How did you find that flight?
- kevindong 9y ago
  I just use Google Flights by first searching for one-ways: I enter in the origin, destination, and departure date. (as an aside: generally only the large legacy carriers do this type of price discrimination.) Find one flight that's not "this is so cheap I don't care" (basically at least a few hundred dollars). Then, change the search mode to round trip and find the same departing flight. The lowest round trip price will be shown.
smohnot 9y ago
This again is market segmentation. When I was flying a lot as a management consultant, even when flying somewhere and back, the times mattered more to me than the airline so I'd often do 1-ways on different airlines and didn't care that it cost ~$1k 1-way for a domestic airline. Also often, I was hopping from place to place using 1-ways.
- kevindong 9y ago
  I understand the economic rationale behind this, but I would think that there's automated tools to exploit this segmentation. It'd just be a simple function call to determine if there is any round trip flight (with a certain one-way segment) that's cheaper than the one-way segment alone. --- I stumbled upon this strangeness while planning out a vacation. I'm basically hopping through Europe so I was buying several one way flights. I accidentally clicked the roundtrip button once and noticed that the prices, in general, seemed lower than the one way. So I checked and lo and behold: they were lower. I ultimately just went with Ryanair because their prices were literally a third of what the next lowest carrier wanted (~$35 vs. ~$120).

fishywang 9y ago

No the rationale behind it is very different from the Uber case. The reason behind hidden city fares is, the price of SFO-NYC-BTV is for the SFO-BTV market, to compete with other airlines' SFO-ATL-BTV, SFO-ORD-BTV, SFO-Whatever-BTV or SFO-BTV direct flight. It has nothing to do with SFO-NYC market, just for this particular airline it happens to route through NYC. It discounted more than SFO-NYC market because competitions on that market. That's why competition is good for customers (history has shown us that when an airline has monopoly on a market, you can only expect the fares on that market to go up). That's also why it's against the contract of carriage you have with the airline and the airlines are working very hard to avoid customers doing that (if you associate your frequent flyer number with hidden city bookings, they might cancel your account. they might also put you on a blacklist if you are caught doing this frequently). The airline practice similar to the Uber one is charging more for frequent flyers. United was caught doing that a few years ago (maybe they are still doing that).

philipodonnell 9y ago
> The reason behind hidden city fares is, the price of SFO-NYC-BTV is for the SFO-BTV market, to compete with other airlines' SFO-ATL-BTV, SFO-ORD-BTV, SFO-Whatever-BTV or SFO-BTV direct flight. It has nothing to do with SFO-NYC market, just for this particular airline it happens to route through NYC. It discounted more than SFO-NYC market because competitions on that market. In price disparity situations as an outsider, its impossible to determine whether the lower price is because based on competitive pressure (as you claim) or whether the higher price is based on customer's willingness to pay (as I claim), because both imply that the other is the "normal" price absent those features. Its likely a little bit of both. What is the same is the economics: costs in both industries are primarily based on miles that they took you. Prices are based on what they think they can get away with charging you. The more they know about you (or infer based on the data they have and what you are trying to do) the more chances they have to charge you higher prices because they think you can afford it.
- fishywang 9y ago
  It's always based on customers' willingness to pay, that's how capitalism works. It's just that the competition will make customers less willing to pay more.

joelrunyon 9y ago

No - that would be like charging people different amounts based on their individual travel habits. Route preferences are one thing. Charging different people different $ is another thing.